Relocated
by Rulisu
Summary: Being a Turk can be a drag, as Reno has discovered. But getting out of the business of death just might be a whole hell of a lot worse with a boss as unforgiving as Tseng.


Hello hello!

Rulisu here!

It's about 4:30 am and I'm tired beyond all human capacity, but the dreaded plotbunny never sleeps, so here we go with a drabbly one-shot type thing.

First time attempting a fanfic outside my obvious comfort zone of Kingdom Hearts. I've been kind of afraid of doing anything Final Fantasy because in my mind, I'd more than butcher it, but the little voice in my head wouldn't leave me alone till I did.

-"Write it!"  
- "No! I'll screw it up!"  
- "Does it look like I care? Do it!"  
- "But it's late and I'm tired!"  
- "I will haunt your dreams and erase every childhood memory that you hold dear until I get what I want!  
- "Alright alright! I'm going! There...openoffice is up and running and I'm typing. Happy now?"  
- "Dance, my puppet! Dance! Muahahahahaaaa!!"

So, let's get to it, eh?

**Warnings/Comments:** Kinda set after AC, though I've never been good with cannon. I have a filthy mouth. Uh... Angst, character death, don't like, don't read, on and on and so forth...

**Musical inspiration:** "White Rabbit"-Collide (The original by Jefferson Airplane owns my soul, by the way)

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Reno sat alone outside the bar, listening to the chatter from within it's dingy walls. The smell of alcohol that lingered on everyone's tired breath was nearly potent enough to make it's way outside to his sensitive nose. The aforementioned nose and all other lovely facial features were shroud in the pale blue-gray of the cigarette smoke issuing from his thin lips. The night's drinking (considered binge by anyone else) was slowly forming a haze on his mind.

"You know you can smoke inside." Rude's voice sent Reno's train of thought careening off the tracks and he looked up at the man standing against a field of mako clouds that lingered across the night sky.

"I like being outside." Reno lied. "The stars are beautiful." he took another puff. There was a humorless chuckle from his partner.

"What stars?"

"The ones in my head." Reno responded, pushing a slender finger to his temple, graced with wild strands of vermilion.

"You're a weird one." Rude chuckled, turning on his heel with a crunch of grit against sidewalk as he headed back into the bar.

"Tell me something I don't know." Reno chuckled, smashing his cigarette into the ground before reaching into his crumpled pack for another. A few people passed him on their way back to whatever hole they'd crawled from that day. Some drunk, some painfully sober, others shady enough to send shivers down even Reno's spine. None of them even looked over at the Turk and he paid them just as much attention. He wondered absently, as he stood, brushing bits of dirt from his rump, if he knew any of them at one point.

Most of his childhood friends were dead for one reason or another. Having the codes to all the citizen files had proved useful in his bored browsing for old acquaintances. All things considered, being nabbed by the Turks wasn't the worst thing that could have happened to him. Brutal training and death as a regular occurrence sure beat the hell out of having to live life as a filthy prostitute or drug addict of some kind. All the same, he wanted out.

Reno wasn't old by anyone's standards, a mere 22 years of age, but he felt ancient. Beneath his cocky exterior was a whiny, bratty child that was finished playing with real guns and wanted to go back to only having access to the plastic ones. He was tired of waking up to barked demands from Tseng on his voicemail, tired of coming home and washing someone else's blood from his hands, tired of falling asleep alone every night because guidelines prohibited relationships.

This last bout with ShinRa and that "chocobo-lookin' motherfucker" Cloud had really drained him. As if watching Rufus wither away wasn't hard enough, he'd been stuck dealing with everything from Sephiroth spawn to kids tripping out on Jenova cells. He was done. With a capital "F-U-C-K-I-N-G-D-O-N-E". He hadn't quite broken the news to anyone yet that he planned to retire. Not to Rude or Elena...especially not to Tseng.

He knew that there was no such thing as 'retiring' from the Turks. By the time you went on your first mission, you knew enough to label you a loaded gun and would be taken out at a moment's notice, should you show any disloyalty to the cause. But there wasn't much use for the Turks anymore. Now that ShinRa was in Rufus's passive hands, things would finally be settling down around Midgar. Maybe they could demote Reno down to some tiddly fuddly office job and allow him the privilege of human contact outside of a group of tactical murderers.

Wasn't too bad of an idea, he'd reasoned. And it seemed pretty rational. He'd even brought up the topic with Rude in casual conversation and the usually terse in dialogued friend had stocked Reno's mind with enough positive influence on the matter to present it to the boss man. And that's exactly what he'd planned to do. Sighing to himself, he walked back into the bar and tapped Rude's shoulder, watching with amusement as the light glanced off the man's bald head when he turned around to face him.

"I'm heading back." the redhead said loudly over the hum of music and nearby drunken laughter. Rude nodded, raising his shotglass as he turned back to the bartender who stood haughtily cleaning out a glass as if she ran the best damn bar in Midgar. Time flew from the moment he stepped out of the dingy place till he stood outside of Tseng's office, fussing with his appearance for the first time in his life. A hand was still smoothing back red spikes when the door opened and Tseng greeted him with the standard, unbiased stare.

"Evening, Tseng." Reno tried to make it sound polite, though everything that passed through his lips carried a sarcastic tone he hadn't had the chance to chase off.

"Reno. You're here rather late. I was in the middle of paperwork." Tseng stated. Reno leaned a bit to the left and around his boss, finding the man's desk was indeed full of enough paper to clog up a mako reactor.

"Was wondering if you could spare a moment. It's kind of important." he rocked on his heels. Tseng's eyes gleamed for a moment with irritation before he stepped aside, motioning Reno into his cramped working space. The redhead took a seat in the chair in front of the desk while Tseng settled into his own, staring not at Reno, but back down at his workload.

"Be brief." he sighed.

"I've been thinking lately..." Reno began. "And this Turk thing...it gets old after a while, you know?"

"Mmm." Tseng agreed, signing his name neatly on the dotted line at the bottom of yet another page. Reno swallowed hard.

"I was thinkin' that maybe I don't want to do this anymore." he said, biting the tip of his tongue as he waited for Tseng's reaction. There was a brief pause in the scribbling of pen on paper, but it quickly resumed.

"May I ask why?" Reno's superior droned, still not looking up from perpetual black and white.

"Well actually, I'm thinkin' I want a family." Reno murmured. At this, the scratching halted entirely and Tseng lifted his handsome face, quirking an eyebrow at Reno.

"You've got to be joking." There was a hint of sarcastic amusement crawling along the edges of his voice.

"Nope." Reno said confidently. "That run-in with Sephiroth knock-offs really made me realize I need to get my head straight." he was surprised at how mature he sounded, even a little sickened. Tseng stared for another moment, then resumed his scribbling.

"It's out of the question." he said. "You know too much."

"I know. I don't plan to ever actually leave ShinRa. But...perhaps an office job of some kind." Reno held his breath.

"There's no job of the sorts available for someone of your caliber right now." Tseng responded. Reno wasn't sure if he meant it as an insult or a compliment of some strange sort.

"You seem pretty overloaded right now." he pointed out.

"I'm always overloaded, Reno." Tseng sounded exasperated.

"Maybe I could help lighten said load?" Reno suggested hopefully, his fingers tugging absently on the hem of his jacket. Tseng sighed, setting his pen aside while he arched his fingers gracefully. Earth-colored eyes stared over the steepled digits at Reno while the redhead squirmed in his seat.

"So you're telling me you no longer want to do fieldwork?" Tseng questioned, drawing a nod from Reno. "And you want a slightly less...active role at ShinRa?"

"That'd be nice." Reno grinned, inwardly celebrating. Tseng's mouth curled into a thoughtful scowl before he rose from his seat, urging Reno to do the same. The Wutain beauty looked his employee up and down, eyebrow arched.

"You will not reconsider?" he asked. Reno shook his head, his vibrant ponytail brushing his back.

"Not a chance, boss man. I've thought about this long and hard. I'm retiring one way or another." he stood firm. Tseng sighed in defeat and shrugged.

"Very well. There's an opening I supposed I could work you into if you're sure this is what you want." Tseng's liquid voice caressed every happy nerve in Reno's body.

"Absolutely!" he chirped. "When do I start?"

"As of now, you'll be relocated. If you're absolutely certain that you wish to retire." Tseng pressed the subject.

"Certain beyond a shadow of a doubt!" Reno grinned, rows of pearly white staring Tseng in the face.

"It's a great loss to ShinRa, but I feel I must respect your wishes." Tseng nodded, his hand reaching into the starched folds of his jacket. Reno stared at the hand, expecting to see a business card of some kind when it re-appeared. Instead, he could nearly make out his own terrified reflection in the black barrel of Tseng's gun.

"W-wait!" he stuttered. "Tse-!" Reno's words were cut short with the explosive, echoing gunshot. Brilliant red sprayed Tseng's walls in a sick, comedic kind of way as the red of Reno's hair fell into the man's face with his limp body. Groaning with disgust, Tseng gingerly pushed Reno's corpse off of him, watching it fall to the floor in a crumpled heap.

He replaced the revolver, pulling a black satin handkerchief from his breast pocket, dabbing at some of the spatters on his hands and face. Walking calmly to his desk, he called the receptionist and ordered a cleanup crew. Then, with an exasperated sigh, he began digging in the filing cabinet beside his desk that he kept double-locked. The one that housed employee files.

He pulled Reno's from the manila sea, opening it to the page containing everything from the Turk's birthname, to his height and weight, to his observed quirks and talents. The rambunctious redhead's picture smiled up at Tseng arrogantly while the man searched his drawers for an ink pad.

"No one 'retires', Reno." he sighed heavily, stamping a bright red "Terminated" stamp across the dead Turk's file. With a weighted heart, he slid the folder back into the cabinet and locked it. Cracking his neck with a fluid movement of his head Tseng slumped back over his desk to continue working.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

There! I've done it!  
The sadistic son of a bitch plotbunny will let me sleep now!

This was lame, in my opinion. I made Tseng look like a monster.

But ShinRa IS that evil, we all know it.  
Just because babyface Rufus is in charge don't mean things'll change.

Reviews are good karma, people!

Rulisu, out!


End file.
